Solid obstacles close to (but not in) the flight path of supersonic projectiles influence the flow field and thus possibly the
projectile trajectory, even if no contact between projectile and obstacle occurs. In order to qualitatively clarify the basic
characteristics of such projectile/obstacle interactions, an initial investigation comprised of two different sets of
experiments has been conducted: live rounds were fired from a rifle so that they passed over a flat plate at distances
between 0.8 and 2.5 projectile diameters in the first set of tests, followed by a second set where a stationary projectile
model was placed in a supersonic wind tunnel to replicate the flow fields of the live range experiments. Time-resolved
monochrome schlieren visualization was used as the primary diagnostic tool in the first set of experiments, while singleshot
color schlieren images were obtained in the wind tunnel tests.